


I Promised I Would Follow

by washingDONE



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, F/M, i literally can't go a day without writing sad stuff can i, more pheacker is on the way, oh well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 16:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11234472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/washingDONE/pseuds/washingDONE
Summary: No matter where her sister went, Lumanja promised that she would follow.She swore on her life.Now, she didn't have a life to swear on, per say.But she still followed.





	I Promised I Would Follow

**Author's Note:**

> i despise myself for writing this  
> wanna go scream at me on tumblr?  
> https://the-devil-wears-purple.tumblr.com/

Everly ambled down the street leisurely. Blithe and peaceful, she seemed perfectly relaxed. Her hair was done in a considerably elaborate braid, and fell over her shoulder in carefully tamed caramel curls. Her eyes mirrored the sky, dazzlingly blue and vivid. A few small freckles dotted her cheeks, though she didn't have nearly as many as her sister did. She had forgone the refined gowns and jade circlets to signify her royal title in favor of a simpler outfit: A pair of fitting denim pants, a gray tunic and knee-length riding boots. She looked like an average girl without a care in the world, plump pink lips twisted into a smile.  
Nobody knew about the hurricane of plans whirling about in her mind.  
She had a meeting at five next week with the ambassador of Flamewillow Isles, so she should arrange a nice walk around the gardens and a tour of the market to show off Veritan customs. Her courter was taking her out to a nice dinner tonight, and she had a few hours to prepare. She should be home in a bit to get ready, perhaps find a plain dress in the back of her closet and shuffle through a mountain of jewelry to find something fitting. She had to pick up Sebastian from the royal dogcare soon; apparently the employees couldn't handle him. There was so much to do, why couldn't she get it all done?  
"You're thinking too much," Her sister cut in from right next to her. Everly jumped in surprise, and whipped around to face her. "You'll give yourself a headache."  
"You can't just sneak up on me like that!" Everly cried indignantly.  
"If you'd been paying more attention to your surroundings, you wouldn't have been so surprised. Practice, sis." Everly huffed in annoyance as her sister mimicked her words.  
"You have a date tonight? You didn't tell me." Lumanja added, a bit of hurt lacing her tone. She winced.  
"Sorry, I forgot to mention it." Everly replied, genuinely guilty. She looked back at her sister, and took a moment to study the other's features.  
Lumanja would never say it out loud, but she was so much more attractive than Everly. Both of them knew it. With sharp, eye-catching vermilion hair that seemed to glow in natural light, her sister was always the first focus of attention. Her eyes, to the surprise of most, were a shockingly plain shade of bluish gray. Millions of tiny freckles painted her skin. The two sisters were stark contrasts to each other, but in a way, they also complemented each other. Everly thought back on the war days, when the two were constantly fighting for their lives. Everly had strategy down pat, and wasn't half bad with a broadsword. Lumanja, on the other hand, wasn't called "Mistress of the Shadows" for nothing. She could rob an entire city blind, and they wouldn't see it coming until she was out the door. Even despite that, Lumanja had a way with words that not many thieves could master. Manipulative and sneaky, plus intelligent and strong were a good combination that you wouldn't want to be on the recieving end of.  
But that was in the past. Lumanja wasn't fit to fight anymore, and that was final. Surprisingly, she didn't really mind. She just sort of hung around the palace, pestering her sister and playing mischievous pranks on everyone.  
"Hey, sis?" Lumanja's quiet voice brought Everly back into reality. She perked up, and looked back.  
"What is it?" She asked cautiously.  
"Can I..." For once, her talkative sister seemed to fall short. That made Everly worry.  
"Is something wrong?" Everly stopped walking.  
"Do you think that he wouldn't be as isolated as he is now if I hadn't....you know." Lumanja lifted her stump of an arm helplessly.  
Everly blinked. "He..." Then she realized exactly who her sister was talking about.  
That he in question would be the quiet, lonely male named Rogue. When Lumanja was quiet (rarely), it was because she was thinking about him. She was the only person who was close enough to him to know his real name, which he kept under lock and key. The two always seemed to be helplessly in love with each other, and their fates seemed to be entwined from the start.  
Then the accident happened, and Rogue stopped leaving his housing quarters, stopped going out of his way to socialize. He locked himself up in a fog of grief and pain, and refused to come out. The few times that Everly tried to coax him out, and even forced entry once. The less said about that experience, the better. He was a lone werewolf, and that was his choice.  
"He was in a war zone for years, Lumanja. He was bound to be affected. I think that losing you hit him harder than any blow he's ever felt before." Everly sighed quietly, and reached out to hold Lumanja's working hand. Her fingertips brushed against empty air.  
"He writes letters," Lumanja said. "I look over his shoulder when he writes them. He says the sweetest of things." Everly gave her sister a sympathetic look.  
"I wish she would save them sometimes. He just burns them like they mean nothing." Her voice turned bitter. Everly didn't know what to say. What could she say? She had no idea what it was like to be ignored by a lover; Natalia was the most attentive, sweet girl you could ask for, and gave Everly her full attention at all times.  
The two finished their walk in silence.  
By the time Everly got home, it was near time for her date. She dressed herself up (with pointed fashion tips from Lumanja not really helping) and was fully prepared when Natalia knocked on her door.  
"You look wonderful, darling." Everly blushed, and returned the compliment with a kiss to the cheek. Natalia certainly spoke for herself, with a floor length black dress that complemented her short, dark hair that fell in ringlets and dark skin  
"You don't look too bad yourself," She replied. Lumanja groaned audibly from behind her, but Natalia didn't seem to react.  
"Come along, I got us reservations at your favorite place." Natalia held out her arm, and Everly looped her arm around it.  
"I don't have a favorite place, Nat...I only eat at home...?" Everly gave her lover a confused look.  
"It's going to be your favorite place after tonight, I promise." Natalia smiled, pressing a small kiss to Everly's knuckles. "The servings are simply divine."  
Everly was aware of Lumanja trailing behind, rolling her eyes at every lovey-dovey comment that Natalia made. She scoffed at some, and even put in little comments that only Everly could hear. She resisted the urge to spin around and tell her sister to shut up because in all honesty, she felt kind of guilty for her.  
Forced to follow Everly everywhere, watch Everly have a life while she sat back, unable to do anything with the one she lost.  
"Being dead sucks." Lumanja muttered under her breath. While she watched Natalia and Everly eat and chat at their table, she thought on how she got here.  
How many mistakes had she made? Too many to count, certainly. This felt like karma, and it was the cruelest punishment she'd ever had the misfortune of experiencing.  
She still remembered the sounds of the battlefield. People screaming for help, the sounds of metal and swords clashing, spells muttered under the breath, all that jazz. She still kind of missed those sounds. They used to be her alarm. The second she and Everly woke up in their shared quarters, it was off to the training grounds. They would train and spar and shoot and cast until their entire bodies ached, with meal breaks in between, and then they'd go to sleep and repeat the cycle. Everly was miserable, but Lumanja liked it more than she could admit. It gave her something to focus her strength on.  
God, if she thought the Veritan soldier training was bad, she had a whole world of pain awaiting her. When she realized that she wasn't exactly human, the commanders shipped her off to Flamewillow Isle to learn fae magic. Though they never specified whether the visit would be permanent, that was her assumption. Flamewillow and Veritans were allies, so it was only natural for them to trade soldiers anytime one of them showed magical promise.  
Every single day was full of mind-numbing brain games and riddles that would take her days to find the answer to. Her trainer must've been bonkers, she thought. She wondered when she would get to the real spellcasting. Eventually, they did, and the training that she experienced at Flamewillow Isles came to last for the rest of her life (which wasn't that long). It also became the place where she met her courter, Rogue.  
When she came back to Verity with Rogue in tow, she found a war zone. Her appearance at the royal palace came at the best possible timing; the enemy had invaded, tearing apart the palace and causing a battle that wrecked the place.  
She didn't even get to see her sister. The first thing to welcome her home was an approaching war party.  
Not too bad, though. She got to wipe them out, which was a nice perk.  
The enemy army didn't stand a chance; when a magically enhanced Fae warrior of Tier 1 was up against an army of giants, there was no competition. And the werewolf at her side didn't hurt her chances either.  
She fought well. The giants were a breeze, but their leader was tricky. He was enchanted; any blow she threw at him hit her back with the same amount of force. If she hit him too hard, she might take herself down in the process.  
But she had to. She thought about how much she'd risked, how many people would die if she just gave up.  
So she hatched a plan. Stalling the giant was the real fun part. Calling him a goat-headed wench was a lot more satisfying when he got angry about it.  
She lured him to the Observant Lady, the tallest and largest monument in the country. It had lasted over a hundred years. Lumanja felt almost bad for destroying it.  
She zipped around the statue, watching the giant punch dents into it until the entire thing was about to fall.  
Her last coherent thought before the statue toppled over them both was that she hadn't even gotten to see her sister again.  
Then her eyes were open, and she had been pulled from a mountain of rubble. She tried to move, and bit back a cry of pain at the white-hot sensation crawling up her arm. Her arm, which was half-buried under a particularly sharp piece of stone. If she lived, she would be crippled for the rest of her life.  
But she quickly realized that she wouldn't. Apart from the gashes that sliced across her body to the blade wound in her stomach, there wasn't exactly a lot of hope.  
She heard hushed whispers, choked sobs, and then suddenly Everly was there.  
"You look like hell," Lumanja croaked. Everly smiled, tears staining her uniform. "I do too, don't I?"  
"You look beautiful." Then Rogue was by her side, holding her other hand gently. He looked particularly unaffected by the battle. His nails were caked with blood from digging under rubble.  
"God, you're too good for me." She had whispered softly. Rogue sobbed.  
"You say that every time, and I tell you the same thing." Rogue got out past the lump in his throat.  
"You might be a total bitch at times, but that's never stopped me from loving you." The two repeated, perfectly in sync. Lumanja sighed softly, blood dribbling from her lip. She blinked when she felt something on her finger. She looked down.  
Rogue lifted her other hand and pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles, slipping a ring onto it.  
Lumanja gasped quietly. The ring was beautifully elaborate, in the shape of a twisting dragon that looped around her ring finger with a ruby eye and several other tiny gemstones dotting its golden body. It must've been horribly expensive.  
"T-The dragon, it's a Flamewillow's symbol for romance, and strength." Rogue said, voice shaky.  
"Or is it because you want our relationship to drag-on?" Lumanja smirked, and she still looked mischievous, even with several life-threatening wounds in her body. She was on her deathbed, and she was brave enough to risk her last words being a joke.  
"I love you." Rogue replied, a small smile on his lips.  
"Me too."  
"Marry me?"  
"Sure."  
The last thing Lumanja heard was Everly's voice, low and soft, singing one of their favorite childhood lullabies in a choked voice.  
Then everything was black.  
Lumanja still remembered waking up in a house she didn't recognize. The smell of her favorite dish, Gray Lamb stew, caught her nose. She followed it into what appeared to be a kitchen, where her sister was cooking. She peered over Everly's shoulder at the stew.  
"You made my favorite?! Aww," was all she could say before Everly whipped around, spoon in hand, and promptly dropped it.  
The teary reunion was something of a surprise. Lumanja quickly realized that ghost-her was missing an arm and had retained its wounds. Though the blood that came from them didn't get on anything, it still made for a bit of a creepy look.  
Everly took Lumanja out that day to see if anyone would notice her. Nobody spared her a glance, even when she waved her arms around and yelled at some of them.  
That was fine, at first. Then she wanted to see Rogue. How had he been in the past six or so years since she'd died? Had he moved on?  
She drifted into his quarters one quiet day, and came to find him alone, staring at something. Upon further inspection, Lumanja realized that he was staring at a picture of her.  
Sweet. Creepy, but sweet.  
She tried for days to get his attention. Flinging papers around the room, knocking books off of shelves, even touching him a few times. From what Everly reported, her touch felt like an odd breeze. An odd breeze that Rogue didn't seem to care about.  
Life started getting lonely for her. Everly was always off doing some Captain-of-the-Royal-Guard business and Lumanja couldn't do anything about it. In public, Everly hardly spared her a glance, which she could understand. It'd be a bit bad for her image if she was seen talking and looking at nobody.  
So, Lumanja followed. She had no choice, really. She stuck around with her sister for years and years, long enough to see her start a family and kids. Lumanja watched it happen, while her lover slowly became a shell of his former self.  
Several times, she tried to convince Everly to let him talk to her. Be a translator of sorts. It would let the two talk with Everly letting them communicate.  
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that it wouldn't work out. She never had time to think about the logic of things when she was alive; every situation was act-or-die, so she couldn't really consider the consequences of her choices before they'd been made. Now, she hard years and years to think about her decisions, both previous and current. And now?  
She kind of wished that she hadn't died.  
But in Rogue's case, he wouldn't believe Everly no matter what she said. He would want to believe her, yes, but he wasn't going to believe in a ghost story of her sister's. He would think it more of a joke.  
So Lumanja kept following. She was loyal to her sister, that much was clear.  
She would follow her Everly until one of them kicked the bucket, she had promised herself a million years ago. Judging by Lumanja's current state, she had a long time to wait.

**Author's Note:**

> this was kind of me ranting on and on for a few paragraphs, hope u enjoyed


End file.
